The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom

“There is a reason God limits our days.”

“Why?”

“To make each one precious.”

That is the moral of the story.

Most of us are caught up with wanting more time. We want more time to spend with our family, we want more time to live life, we want more time to complete a task. Sometimes, we even want time to pass by faster, like that of a student wanting time in school to pass by quickly so that he can play some games. There is nothing wrong with wanting more time but before we have the audacity to ask for more, we need to take a look at how we are spending our time.

Do we use our phones when we are in the company of others? Do we anticipate the next activity while in the middle of another? Do we procrastinate?

If the answer is yes, we are basically spending time as if it is an infinite resource.

“With endless time, nothing is special. With no loss or sacrifice, we can’t appreciate what we have”

Many people before us have fallen into the same trap. The trap of infinite time. So, when one of their loved ones died, they regretted not spending time with them and not being there for them when they needed them. They did not appreciate the time they actually had with them. They realised that they should have put their complete focus when in conversation with them, interacting and laughing with them and not dividing that attention to a phone but by then… it was already too late.

“There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.”

I understand that trying to appreciate our time can sometimes be difficult but I guess what is important is that we start to make small changes in our lives to make the process easier. We can put away our phones when we’re interacting with someone, we can also allocate time to go without technology or being connected every single day.

In the book, Dor learnt that lesson in a hard way. He was trapped by a servant of God in a cave for thousands of years with the only thing accompanying him are the voices of people asking about time, for more time, for less time, for time to stop… He didn’t age nor required sustenance and thus, was made to suffer in that cave until heaven meets earth. By listening to the voices of the people, and soon after helping two individuals, he also learnt that the amount of time we have will never be enough.

“Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour? It does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time. When you are measuring life, you are not living it.”

I think the following quote sums up the book pretty well:

“When you are measuring life, you are not living it.”

Therefore, make the best out of the time that we have on Earth. Spend time with your loved ones, make them smile and laugh, do fun things with them. We will never know when our time will run out so start living it.